Day 6, Costanoa KOA/Santa Cruz

So, time to leave Manchester Beach. Tons of fun there, really. We enjoyed our third lighthouse on the Pacific Coast while at Manchester Beach called Point Arena Lighthouse. On the advice of the locals, we decided to backtrack a few miles in order to avoid more emesis basins and Curlicue Highways. So back we went, over hill and dale, and finally made it back to Highway 101. Oh Sweet Deliverance!!


The kids weren’t so much into looking at stuff – they just wanted to get the heck down the road. We made no stops and looked at nothing tourist-trappy until we got to the Golden Gate Bridge. We made a short stop at Fort Baker at the foot of the western side of the bridge to take a few pics, and off we went. Three minutes tops. Then we had a nice drive over the bridge and a look at Alcatraz.

Highway 101 winds through some really nifty parts of San Francisco. I got a peek at one of the trolleys as it was coasting down the cross street. Besides that, we really didn’t do much in town. The boys saw some fancy cars for sale and tons of them on the road, so they were in testosterone nirvana.

After getting through town, we had an impossible decision to make. The campgrounds we liked were along the coast, which was on Highway 1. The dreaded Highway 1. But that’s where the campsites were. We decided to give it a go, and fortunately the drive was awesome and the campground had an empty spot! (and a lighthouse, Pigeon Point Lighthouse)

Day 5, Manchester Beach still

We decided it was a good idea to stay another day in Manchester Beach. Just a day to chillax and unwind.


In the morning I found branches and pinecones all over our campsite, which was really remarkable since the groundskeepers had kept the site spotless. Then I found the offending critter munching merrily up in tree about 20 feet above me. He was mowing on a pinecone and tossing the crumbs over his shoulder.


He had obviously done some farming previously and those bundles of cones were his rejects. Those things could knock you out, I'm not kidding you. Musta weighed 3 pounds each if they weighed an ounce.

We spent that night on the beach again. Beautiful day, peaceful night.

Day 4, Manchester Beach, CA

After a totally restful night in a real bed in a real house with real walls and real toilets, we started our day with a meeting of the minds. We were supposed to spend two days at Prairie Creek, but it was still dumping rain. It was dumping to the point that there was no way we were going to be able to hike or see any of the giant trees we had come so far to see. Honestly though, the kids weren’t upset in the slightest. Trees, schmeeze… they didn’t care. So we decided to get a refund on our campsite and move along to Manchester Beach.

It has been proven by four out of five tourists to be hazardous to your health to travel on an empty stomach, so we started our journey with a breakfast in Orick at the Palm Inn. Nice little country café with the most polite staff on the planet. They were so sweet and had stayed late the night before and fed us dinner, so we went back for breakfast. Same cook, same waitress. Do these people ever sleep??

Highway 101 had been the road less traveled, so we started with that for the day. I have to tell you though, I was quite the pain about missing the trees. You could see quite a few from the road, but there were those bigguns somewhere in the woods, and I didn’t get to see them. I was so ticked that I had started to make plans in my noggin for another trip just to see the trees in a couple of years. Honestly, I was a bear. A cranky, crabby, pouty bear with no buffet.


Then we spotted the Avenue of the Giants!! A long and not-too-windy road that meanders through the real giants of the redwoods. There is very little brush growing in these groves, so hiking is easy and a pleasure. There are too few words in the English language to describe these trees. They tower above you so high that you literally lose the tops in the sky. To stand and look at one, you can probably only see about one-fifth of the girth of the tree. It’s a journey in itself just to walk around the base of a giant redwood. I could live there. My greatest joy was that the kids all ended up saying that the forest was much more spectacular than anything they thought it would be. They were thoroughly impressed. Job done. ;o)


This is a fallen redwood and if you look with a microscope you can see Kris on the right side of the stump.

There was a neat little junk shop/tourist trap alongside the road with a Gravity House in the back. We walked in at 5:00, just when the shopkeeper was about to close up. He humored us and gave us 15 minutes to check out their gravity contraption, which totally made me wacky. My mind just couldn’t get a grip on how I was supposed to stand upright while the walls were crooked… The mind is an evil and twisted thing. This stop was Tia’s idea and was a total blast.

At the end of the Avenue of Giants is a nice little scenic highway that runs right along the cliffs. It’s called Highway 1. I hate Highway 1. The 43.9 miles we drove on that God-forsaken highway took us all of three hours. I had one stroke and three heart attacks on the drive, and the kids were so quiet you could hear a gnat belch. We had to stop once to let the brakes cool off since they were smoking. Every 20 feet was a switchback or hairpin turn that was at tops a 10-mph turn. Uphill, downhill, around and around. Hurl.


Anyway, we finally made it down the highway into the KOA at Manchester Beach. We enjoyed a dinner of ribs, box taters, and peaches. Then we rambled down to the beach to take a peek at the ocean. The hills on the bluff were completely carpeted in wildflowers. The ocean was something to see. In this area it crashed on the beach instead of rolling in like it had in Seaside. And there was a seal playing just a few feet out in the waves. There was also another lighthouse, the second on our trip so far.

Day 3, Prairie Creek, Redwood Nat Park

We got up late and decided to take a look at the lighthouse at Bullard Beach before we left. It’s really kinda neat. It no longer functions (I think there is only something like one functioning manned lighthouse in these days of technology) but they have it all restored. It really is the perfect storybook lighthouse.

We stopped just north of the California border to have a bite to eat, and while we were dining it dumped rain. I haven’t seen rain like that in many, many moons. And it brought lightning with it, too.


After crossing into California, it was a relatively uneventful drive to the Prairie Creek campground, where we were informed by the ranger that we need to secure all of our scented items into the bear box located at the campsite. "Bear box" was all we heard. We tried to camp there, really we did. It was dumping rain and for goodness sake we had a bear box at our campsite!! What the heck, man?? We pretended to make camp in the van and there were a bunch of nervous chuckles exchanged about what we were going to do when the bear climbed into the van to find the scented toothpaste. Then we gave up and decided to drive around.


You would not believe what we found on the way into town to grab dinner. Sure enough, it was a cabin!! Took us about 20 seconds to vote on that one and secure a room. We made a quick trip back to the bear-infested campsite to get our lotions and soaps, and spent the rest of the night relaxing in a full-fledged house with moose (meese? mice?) hanging out in the back yard. We left the bears alone for their all-they-could-eat buffet.

Thanks to my dear friend, Beth, I must clarify the above info. The critter in the picture and the critter described are not the same, although somewhat similar if you stand way far back and squint. They were obviously not meese, but elk. Obviously. (sheesh) (and Beth, glad I could provide entertainment for you ;o) )

We had a wonderful night. Inside.

Kids having too much fun

Day 2, Bullard Beach, OR

Woke up to rain in Astoria. Quite a bit of rain, and it just kept raining and raining. We packed up camp with wet everything. What a mess.

Our first stop was in Seaside, where the boys showed Tia and I where they had spent the previous summer with Grandma. It was a lovely town and there weren’t a whole gob of people there yet. We spent a few minutes on the beach and a few nanoseconds in the water. The weather was just not cooperating though, so we had to leave earlier than we would have liked. Subway warmed us up and filled our bellies.

Every few miles we pulled off the road to take a look at the gargantuan rocks sticking up out of the ocean. There really was quite a few of them scattered along the coastline, and they seemed to travel in flocks. I read somewhere that Haystack Rock is the third largest rock of that type in the world. I suppose someone somewhere has the job of Rock Measurer of the Planet, and he decided it was pretty darn big, and I concur.


Newport Aquarium is quite impressive, although it seems to me that they are always rather small compared to zoos. I suppose that’s not an equal comparison. In all fairness though, the aquarium was worth seeing. It had some jellies that were floofing around in their tanks. I wonder how they know where in the heck they’re going? I love jellies.


Somewhere along 101 we tripped over the Sea Lion Caves and decided to check them out. There are some good reviews and some really horrid reviews on the caves, so I was torn whether to spend the money to see them or not, but due to an extreme amount of peer pressure I gave in. And it turned out to be money well spent. There were two observation points with views of very fat and happy sea lions. Before you get to the viewing decks you can hear them hollering from below and they sound like a bunch of Harleys. I really thought it was motorcycles making the noise, really. The second part of the self-guided tour is a 200-foot elevator ride down to the cave, which claims to be the largest sea cave in the world. Now I haven’t seen many sea caves in my time, but this was a gargantuan cave, so I would not be surprised if it was true. The center of the cave had a large rock protruding up out of the sea, and slathered on the top were a bunch of sea lions and one huge male. This tour was Tia’s favorite attraction/event in Oregon.


Then we pulled in late to our campsite at Bullard Beach. It was still just the dreariest weather, so we were thrilled to have a yurt. After roasting marshmallows, we were visited by the cleaning crew, otherwise known as a raccoon. He made sure our spot was clean, and then lumbered off into the woods. I loved him!

Astoria, OR

We made it to Astoria! What a beautiful place!! Hummingbirds everywhere. We rarely see them, but they fight constantly and so we hear them all the time. They are totally entertaining.

We stopped at Pike's Place Market yesterday for lunch and had humbow. Yu-uuumm!!

Then on the way down we got an awesome look at St. Helen's. It's been almost 30 years. The mountain was beautiful.

Then crossed the Columbia on the Lewis and Clark Bridge in Longview. Don't think I'd ever been on it before.

Stopped in Astoria to see the Astoria Column, which was really, really tall. They have stairs that spiral up the inside, but it was closed so we couldn't go up. Which was a good thing!! ;o)

Anyway, it's Tuesday morning and we are getting ready to head out. Will check in down the road!! Love to all!!!